


These Dreams

by AOO



Category: Ylvis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AOO/pseuds/AOO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bård is troubled by some dreams that seem to foretell a disaster at the upcoming MTV VMA's, but resists sharing that with Vegard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is totally fictional. Alternate Universe - No Wives, No Kids.

Wednesday 2:30 am  - Day 3 of the dream

 

"No... No… No… NO!"

Bård woke up from the sound of his own voice. He was breathing hard and crying, having just woken up from the same dream he'd had each of the two previous nights.  Each time it started out the same, one week before the MTV VMA awards show and brought him through the evening of the show.  He always had a dream in the dream, no, actually seven dreams in the dream to be exact. And in the dreams he always woke up knowing that Vegard was going to die.  

The first night when he woke up, his screams quickly turned to laughter (which coincidently was his reaction in the first dream within a dream.) _Wow! That was crazy. I'm no dream expert, but I'm pretty sure it means I'm a more than little nervous about this performance._

The second night his reaction was different. He had a hard time getting the dream out of his head immediately. He lay in bed thinking about it, how everything felt so real. And he tried to remember the last time he'd had a recurring dream. Eventually, though, his heart stopped racing and he was able to let it go. It was just a dream.  

But this third time, after his heartbeat returned to normal, it was harder to dismiss. Yesterday, Vegard had been late for rehearsal. Vegard was never late, especially not for anything work related.  And yet he was late yesterday and in every day two of his dreams, all three of them.  He couldn’t imagine that thought entering his dreams. And then for it to happen on that very day... but it had to be a coincidence. He racked his brain for something unusual that  happened in dream day one that also had happened in his real life. There were a lot of similarities but he couldn't think of anything unexpected that matched. He stared at the ceiling for a long time, but after a while he was able to get back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

That morning, Bård remembered the dream as soon as he woke up. It made him feel anxious. He wanted to give Vegard a call, to hear his voice, but he decided that was silly. He’d see him at the office in a few minutes. As he continued getting ready for his day that nervous feeling passed. It was just a dream, he told himself. _I’d better make sure I don’t eat anything weird tonight. I must not be sleeping well._

It was a beautiful day and once he left his home he completely forgot about the dream.

Arriving at work, he found a note on his desk from Vegard.

 

                     I had to run out for a little while. Could you talk to the prop department

                     about that catapult we talked about for next week? I gave them a call this morning,

                     but I guess they weren’t in yet.  I’ll be back by 11:00 am.

 

                     Oh, and don’t make plans for lunch. I’ve got a surprise. - V

 

He was getting a surprise? The thought put a smile on his face. He wondered what it could be. Realizing that he’d just have to wait, he decided to ignore it for now and get to work. He and Vegard had a lot to get done before they left for the MTV award show on Saturday. They each had their own todo lists and calling the prop department was one of the things Vegard had said he’d take care of. However, they often helped each other out, it really didn’t matter as long as they got everything done.

Around 11 o’clock Vegard got back to the I Kveld Med Ylvis office with a friend in tow. He couldn’t find Bård in his office. When he asked around he found out that Bård was in the planning meeting for the next off-site shoot. They wanted to go to Munich for Oktoberfest. Vegard wished he’d remembered about the meeting this morning, although he still probably would have had to miss it.  

He left his friend in his office and was just heading over to the meeting rooms when Bård came down the hall toward their offices. “Hey, Bård. I’m sorry. How did it go?” Bård had a peeved look on his face.

“Oh, it was fine.”

Vegard could read a lot of things from Bård’s face, but fine was not one of them. “What’s wrong?”

“Well apparently the network isn’t sure that they want to pay for this. They think we should plan something cheaper and closer to Oslo.”

Vegard recognized Bård’s expression. He always looks particularly stressed after he’s had to suck up to someone for an extended period of time. If the network was involved, there was usually a lot of cajoling and ego stroking involved. “So, how did you leave it?”

“I tried, I really tried to change their minds. I didn’t say anything...well, anything that I wanted to say.” He rolled his eyes. “I think, for now, we’ll have to come up with something else.”

“What was their problem with it?”

Bård shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, the money I guess. I was trying to charm them and make them feel like the whole thing was their idea.” He took Vegard’s shoulders and shook him jokingly. “Damn it, Ylvisåker! I needed you! This is where you shine!”

Vegard laughed. “I’m sorry! I really am. Maybe we can try again later.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He sighed and smiled at Vegard. “Forget them. What’s my surprise?”

“Right! Come with me...it’s in my office.” Vegard had a big smile that Bård couldn’t quite read. He didn’t think there was a prank involved...but it was always best to be on guard.

Entering Vegard’s office, Bård saw a tall, blond male looking out of Vegard’s window. When he turned around, Bård realized it was Per, a friend of Vegard’s from college. “Well, hello Bård. Did you finally make it in to work?” He was dressed in an expensive suit and his Gucci briefcase was sitting on the chair.

Bård had never really liked Per, he was always so self-absorbed and snarky. Per was a natural born politician, in the worst sense, and had become sort of a bigwig in the State Department. Bård knew that he worked in a foreign embassy, although he couldn’t remember which one, and recalled how pleased he had been when he’d heard that Per had gotten the job. He had assumed that he wouldn’t have to see Per anymore. For some reason Vegard always seemed to give Per the benefit of the doubt whenever he said something rude. It was a trait that he appreciated in Vegard sometimes, but not so much today. “Hello, Per. Nice to see you, too.” He held the sarcastic tone down to a reasonable level.

“Per! Bård’s been here all morning while I went to pick you up at the airport. He just took a meeting with network reps that I was supposed to be at.” Vegard wasn’t aware of Bård’s feelings about Per, but he did know that his old college friend could be grating. He did not appreciate what Per had just said to his brother.

“Oh, so normally you get stuck with the difficult meetings, Vegard?” He had the same arrogant, superior look on his face that Bård remembered. It would feel so good to punch that cocky smile off his face.

Vegard decided to try to get off the subject rather than explain that normally they both would be in the meeting. “Come on. Stop it! Be nice...I want you guys to be friends.” He gave Bård a look that he read as: Please, please, don’t take the bait.

Bård decided to bite his tongue for Vegard’s sake. “Sure. Let’s be friends.” He turned to address Vegard, not wanting to include Per in the conversation. “Did you say we were going to lunch?” Vegard smiled at him. He knew that he was going to owe him one, or maybe more than one.  Nevertheless he appreciated that Bård was making an effort.

“Yes, I thought we’d go to Lofoten Fiskerestaurant.” He had just suggested Bård’s favorite lunch place, hoping that Bård would take it as the thank you that it was.

Bård smiled back at Vegard. “Sounds good. I’ve got a couple of things to finish first. Oh, and the prop department is all over the catapult. I think they look forward to that stuff.”

“Thanks for doing that. Let me know when you’re ready.” Bård left the office and Vegard turned to Per. “Why are you like that to him?” Vegard loved to needle Bård, but honestly hated it when almost anyone else gave him a hard time. (Calle and Bjarte being the most noteable exceptions.) 

“I like to see what he’ll do.” Per was obviously pleased with the way his exchange with Bård had gone.

“Well, don’t!” Vegard began to wonder if he had just invited Bård to lunch or to a verbal sparring match.

Seeing a model of a Concorde on the bookshelf, Per picked it up and absentmindedly played with it. “You have to protect him from me?” Vegard wished he’d put the airplane down. It had been a gift from Bård when they started their own production company.

Per set it down and turned to Vegard with one raised eyebrow and a mischievous smile. “He can’t handle it?”

He wanted to say that if anything he’d have to protect Per in a battle of wits against Bård. But he knew Per would take that as a challenge. “I’m sure he can, I’m asking you to stop.”

* * *

 

After a tasty but awkward lunch, Per went to his hotel and Vegard and Bård went back to their office.  "I'm sorry about him, Bård."

"Yeah, whatever.” He was following Vegard into his office. “I just don't get why you like him.  "

Vegard thought about when he first met Per. “I don’t know. He was fun in college. He and Calle used to get going...weren’t you there that time we went out for pizza and they…”  Vegard was looking at Bård and saw his face change. “What? Why do you have that face?”

“You ask me that, every time you tell that story. No, I wasn’t there.” Vegard couldn’t quite read whether he was put out because he hadn’t been there or because Vegard always forgot that he hadn’t been there.  

He hung his jacket on the hook and sat down. “So, why does that make you mad?”

Bård sat down on his favorite spot, the arm of the couch. “No, I’m not mad. I just….”

“You seem mad…” _And how many times have I told you not to sit there. You’re going to break the couch._ Vegard decided not to mention it this time.

“That guy’s an egotistical, conceited jerk, but apparently those were the best days of your life.” A little embarrassed that he’d finally said that about Per, he kept his gaze down and studied his shoes.

That got Vegard’s full attention. “Wow...is that what you think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It kinda sounded like it, the way you two were reminiscing.” Remembering that Vegard didn’t like him sitting there, he got up and walked to the window. “Everytime I see him I feel like I’m 16 and I remember how it felt to be left behind while you were off at college.” He stared out the window, wishing they hadn’t gotten on this subject.

Vegard thought about that for a while. “I didn’t know that was hard for you.”

He looked at Vegard to make sure he wasn’t kidding. “Well, of course it was. We spent so much time together, for years, and then you were just…. gone. I felt kind of lost those first few months. When you finally came home for Christmas, you spent the entire break hanging out with Calle and Per.”

“I probably thought that you’d be hanging out with your girlfriend.”

“Well, her family went out of town for most of Christmas break. Look, it was a long time ago. I guess it just kind of bugs me that you totally ignored me to go hang out with him.” Bård was trying to think of a way to end this conversation. He didn’t really like sharing that kind of stuff.

“I don’t remember that.” Vegard was starting to feel a little bad.

“Well I do. Now that I think about it, you didn’t even come to my school show. You got home from college the night of the show and went out with Per instead.” He hadn’t thought about that for a long time, but it still hurt to remember that now.

Vegard was trying to remember that break. He felt certain he would have noticed if Bård had wanted to spend time with him. “You had a lot of friends at school. Are you sure you would have had time for me after your show?”

He had to look him in the eyes again, just to make sure he was serious. “Vegard, I’d been looking forward to you coming home for weeks. I wanted to spend time with you.” Sometimes his brother was so dense. “I missed you.”

He realized that was a mistake as soon as he’d said it.

Vegard had a goofy smile on his face as he approached Bård with his arms wide open for a hug. “I’m sorry, little brother. Let’s hug it out.”

Bård was laughing now and pushing Vegard away. “I don’t miss you now! I get more than enough of you!” He was backing away from Vegard all around the room and eventually backed into Vegard’s desk almost falling over onto it. Vegard grabbed his wrist and caught him so he wouldn’t hurt himself on anything, but then took advantage of Bård being in his grasp and gave him a greatly exaggerated hug.

“Get off of me you dork!” It turned into a bit of a struggle, with the laughter escalating as Bård tried to twist out of Vegard’s bearhug.

Just then their secretary interrupted to remind Vegard of a phone interview. “They’re waiting for you on line two.” Vegard quickly released Bård. She raised her eyebrows and then shook her head as she walked away laughing.

As soon as she was gone they both started laughing uncontrollably. Vegard was trying to stop so he could answer the phone, but Bård had fallen onto the couch and was laughing so hard that he was having trouble catching a breath. Of course, seeing Bård laughing like that made it almost impossible for Vegard to stop. He finally dragged Bård to his feet and shoved him, still laughing, out the door. He managed to get most of the way through the interview and then almost totally lost it near the end of the call when he heard Bård start to giggle again in his own office next door.

* * *

 

Later, when Bård got home, the dream came back into his mind. He’d been so busy at work that he hadn’t thought about it, except for when he first saw Per. That was so strange. How long had it been since the last time Per had visited Oslo? And what had brought him here today of all days? It was strange enough that he had dreamed about Per's visit, but then for him to actually show up...it was all so bizarre. Still, he had promised himself he wasn’t going to worry about it. It was just a dream.


	2. Chapter 2

Thursday 3:42 am - Day 4 of the dream

“I’m so sorry, but your brother is dead.” Some producer from MTV was talking, but he couldn’t hear anything after that. This can’t be happening. “No! No, he’s not! Where is he? Where is he?!?” But then it was obvious, this was no joke. Who would even think of a joke like this?  His knees went out and he fell to the floor. And then he was crying and saying no, no, no until he almost couldn’t breathe.

“Nooo! Nooo!” He woke with a gasp. He laid there breathing heavily, his heart beating out of his chest while tears were still streaming down his cheeks. _It was a dream. It **was** a dream, right? It felt so real. Shit! It **still** feels real._ He grabbed his phone off the nightstand to see what day it was. It was Thursday morning. He started breathing more easily. It had been a dream. He pulled up the last texts he’d gotten from Vegard, last night after they had gotten home.

         

          Text #1    sent 11:12 pm

          Return my black sweater! I am extremely displeased with your lackadaisical attitude in the returning of said sweater and disappointed in your lack of respect for the Family. Please return the “borrowed” property at your earliest convenience or by 9am tomorrow, whichever comes first. Otherwise I may have to dispatch one of my boys over to your house to send you a little message. Remember that old Italian saying: you fuck up once, you lose two teeth.

         

          Text #2    sent 11:14 pm

          Sorry, watching the Sopranos.

He laughed again at the messages, as he had last night when he first read them. He thought it was funny how reading this faux-threatening message had actually relaxed him. Vegard’s ok, he’s at home and he probably stayed up late watching one too many episodes of the Sopranos last night.

 _I should make a point of not bringing the sweater tomorrow_. The thought made him smile as he drifted back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Bård slipped on his jacket, picked up his keys from the counter and grabbed an orange from the bowl on the table. He was running a little late and he knew they had a planning meeting first thing at 9:00 am. He locked his front door and was almost to his car when he remembered. Hurriedly he ran back to the house, through the kitchen to the dining table and grabbed the sweater off the back of one of the chairs. _I guess it has been sitting here for a while._

When he arrived at the office there was no one in the meeting room so he headed over to Vegard’s office. Entering without knocking he dropped the sweater onto his brother’s desk. “I hope it’s not too late to call off the hit.” Smiling, Vegard glanced at the clock on his desk, it was 9:03 am. “I’m sorry, it’s out of my hands now.” Quickly, he grabbed the sweater. “Thanks for this, though.” He began to laugh.

“I thought you’d be in the meeting room.” Bård was laughing too. “Didn’t you tell me that it would start at nine?” Bård fell heavily back onto the couch.

“I did.” Vegard spoke to his sweater as he was slipping it on. “Hello, old friend.”

“I haven’t had it for that long.” Bård rolled his eyes. “So what happened to the meeting?” He watched Vegard’s smile grow to a satisfied grin.

“It starts at 9:15. It’ll be nice to have you there on time for a change.” Occasionally, Vegard made attempts at improving Bård’s punctuality. Mostly he did it for the sport of it, as he knew that true change was unlikely.

“Very funny. I’ll bet you’d be sad if I’d died in a horrible crash ‘cause I was hurrying to get here for a nine o’clock meeting that didn’t even exist.”

Vegard struggled to put a somber look on his face. “Of course I would. But I don’t think you’ve ever hurried to get here on time, for a meeting or anything else. The odds were in my favor.” Losing the battle he started laughing.  “I have to give you props though, 9:03 really isn’t that bad.”

Bård laughed. _Ok, fine. You won this time._

 

* * *

 

Per showed up again at the IKMY office in the late afternoon. Bård was at his desk and about to go talk to Vegard when he looked over his shoulder into his brother’s office and saw Per. _Oh, shit! What’s he doing here again so soon? Oh, yeah. I guess Vegard invited him yesterday._ Bård decided to head down early to their dressing room, not wanting to deal with Per again.

Per was happily sharing the details of his busy and apparently very productive day. Vegard found it difficult to listen. Now all he could think was that Bård was right, Per was pretty full of himself. Since talking to Bård yesterday, Vegard was looking at Per in a different light. He didn’t really care that Bård wasn’t pals with Per, but it disturbed him that Bård disliked him so much. Bård was a pretty good judge of people and Vegard was aware of his own tendency to be a little too tolerant. He really regretted inviting him to the taping of their show, but it was too late for that now. He wasn’t going to have Per thrown out of the building.

Per had stopped talking about his day and was looking at Vegard as if he was expecting an answer. “Excuse me, I guess I missed that.”

“Don’t you ever want to do this on your own?”

”What do you mean?” Vegard had a pretty good idea of what he meant, but was surprised that he would say such a rude thing right to his face

“You’re so talented. You don’t need that little brother of yours, do you? Look at your videos - Stonehenge, Jan Egeland, The Cabin - they’re so good without him.”

“Well, actually, we collaborate on pretty much everything.” Vegard wondered to himself why he had even dignified that question with an answer.

Per had picked up the airplane again and was looking at it. “Well, even so.”

Vegard felt his temperature rising. “I like working with him, Per.” Why had he picked up the plane again? “And he’s my brother, so stop belittling him!” Vegard was reconsidering whether or not he should kick him out of the building. “And would you please put that plane down?!”

Per was a little startled by Vegard’s obvious displeasure and as he hastily tried to set the plane back on its stand it fell out of his hand. The handmade wooden model broke into four pieces upon impact. Vegard, having hurried over, picked up the crippled plane and was silent. He thought of many things to say but was unable to say anything. He was fond of the plane, but he was even more fond of what it represented. He hated to think of what Bård would say.

Per was genuinely mortified. He practically fell over himself trying to apologise. “I’m so sorry Vegard. I don’t know what happened. I’ll certainly buy you a new one. I’m just so sorry!”

There was nothing else that Vegard wanted him to say, nothing that would make him feel better about it anyway. And there wasn’t much point in yelling at him now. “It’s….alright. I know it was an accident.” _But it’s **not** really alright, **look** at it!_ He just kept staring at it in disbelief.

“Where can I get a new one for you? Where did you get this?” Per didn’t know the significance of the plane, but he knew very well of Vegard’s love of flight.

Vegard was examining the damage. “You can’t. Not really. I got it as a present.” He didn’t want to tell him it was from Bård because if Per said anything else negative about Bård, Vegard was pretty sure that he would have to kill him. “I....I'll try to repair it later.” He felt so disgusted he couldn’t bear to look at the one-winged plane any more right now. Just wanting this visit with Per to be over with, he suggested that they go downstairs and get ready for the taping.

 

* * *

 

When Vegard sat down in the make-up room, Bård thought something was wrong. “You ok?”

Vegard sighed  “Yeah, I’m fine.”  He really didn’t want to talk about it and he didn’t want to tell Bård about the plane yet so he changed the subject. “So is there anything I need to know about the guests tonight?”

 

* * *

 

After the show, Per went up to Vegard to complement him. He really was caring less and less about what Per thought but accepted his praise graciously. Per, ever the politician, made a point of complementing Bård, as well. Bård had taken off quickly after the taping, not wanting to get stuck talking to Per. Vegard didn’t trust the sincerity of Per’s praise of Bård, so it didn’t really earn Per any points.

Calle was talking to a few audience members, posing for photos, and then went over to join Vegard and Per. Having arrived barely in time for the show, he hadn’t seen Per yet. “Hey! How the hell are you? What are you doing in Oslo?”

“Calle! Good to see you. I’m in town for a conference on alternative energy and the third world. But of course, since I’m here, I’ve been able to touch base with people in the state department and……”

Vegard couldn’t listen anymore. He felt a little guilty leaving Calle to listen to Per prattle on, especially when Calle shot him a desperate look, but he just had to get away from Per. “You guys need to catch up and I’ve got some things I need to do. See you later, Per.”

When Vegard got back to the dressing room he was surprised to see that Bård was already gone. He asked a few people and eventually found someone who had seen him go to the elevator. _Oh, no. He’s gone up to the office._ He didn’t think Bård would notice the plane tonight, but just in case he wanted to tell him first.

Bård walked through the empty IKMY office space to his own office and grab his jacket off the wall hook. As he was about to leave, he remembered that Vegard had a copy of the latest book by one of their guests for next week. Vegard had suggested that he might want to read it on the flight this weekend, so he went into Vegard’s office to grab it off the bookshelf. As soon as he stepped in the room, he saw the plane.

Vegard got off the elevator and hurriedly walked towards their offices. _I just need to talk to him, before he sees it._ When he turned the corner he could see that Bård wasn’t in his own office, he was in Vegard’s office standing by the bookshelf.

Vegard stood in the doorway to his office. “Bård. I wanted to tell you...” Bård was holding the main body of the plane and one of the broken off landing gear pieces, looking as if he were trying to figure out if it fit together well enough to be repaired.

 _I can’t believe this! How could this have happened?_ “What happened? You and Knut weren’t throwing that ball around in here again, were you?” He somewhat regretted saying that once he glanced over at Vegard and saw how upset he was.

“No. It’s worse than that.” Now that they were standing there, he really didn’t want to tell him at all. He especially dreaded telling him that Per was involved. He somehow felt like Bård would feel even worse knowing that Per had broken it.

Bård couldn’t believe his eyes. How could the Concorde have broken? Looking up from the plane he again saw the pained expression on Vegard’s face and just wanted him to feel better. “We can try to repair it… Or I can tell you where I found it.”

Vegard was feeling worse about it every minute. “No, I don’t want to buy one. I want the one you gave me.” He knew it sounded a little whiny, but he didn’t care. “You see, what happened was…”

“Don’t feel bad. I probably shouldn’t have gotten the one with the separate stand.” Staring at the damaged plane, Bård felt sick. Even so, he felt the need to comfort Vegard. 

Vegard finally stepped into the room and stood next to his brother. “Bård, this isn’t your fault. I should tell you what happened...”

“Well I know, but…” Bård was still looking at the broken plane and didn’t realize that he was interrupting Vegard.

Vegard put a hand on his shoulder. “Please, please, can I just tell you? I really don’t want to, so I need to do it now.” Bård finally turned his attention to Vegard. “Per was in my office today. He picked it up and was, I don’t know what the hell he was doing with it, flying it around like he was seven. I got mad and told him to put it back and he was trying to, I guess. And then it fell.” Vegard finished abruptly. The rest was pretty obvious. He just looked at Bård, waiting for his reaction.

Bård turned away and then looked at him with a fire in his eye. “How could you let _him_ touch it!?” He took a few steps back.

Vegard could barely look at Bård. _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_ “I didn’t _want_ him to touch it. I ..”

“Vegard!” Bård couldn’t keep a straight face.

“...I _told_ him to put it down.”

“Vegard, I’m kidding!” Vegard looked up when he heard Bård laughing. “Look, you don’t have to feel so bad about it. It’s not your fault. And it’s just a model plane. You didn’t think I was going to flip out over it did you?”

“No. Well, I thought you’d at least care. It’s more than just a model plane, I thought it symbolized something.” Bård was a little surprised to see that Vegard was hurt by what he’d just said.

“Of course it means something.” Bård walked back over to where Vegard was standing. “It symbolizes our partnership...but we still have the actual partnership. It’s not like this was all you had left to remember it by.”

“No, you’re right.” Vegard relaxed a bit. “I guess I wanted both.” He half smiled at that.

“You wanted the partnership _and_ the model airplane? Well I guess that was too much to hope for, wasn’t it?”

That made Vegard laugh. “You’re right. I was just dreaming too big.”

“I’m just glad I didn’t break it. I don’t know what you said to him, but I’m pretty sure I would have gotten an earful.”

Then to Bård’s surprise, Vegard hugged him.

“What’s this for...not freaking out?” Bård was sort of trying to wriggle away.

“Sometimes I forget that I really like you.” Upon hearing that, Bård sighed and simply returned the hug. “I mean we’re related,” Vegard continued, “so, as you say, we’re kind of stuck with each other. But I also really like you, at least sometimes.”

Bård pulled back a bit to look at Vegard and started laughing. “That was so sweet, so unexpected, and then you just had to add that qualifier.” The more he thought about it the funnier he thought it was. “At least sometimes….” His laughter was infectious. Vegard wished he’d told Bård about the plane earlier because he felt so much better now. “Yeah. Just keepin’ it real.”

 

* * *

 

It was 1:15am. Bård had gone to bed over an hour ago but couldn’t stop thinking. How could that idiot Per have broken the Concorde on the same day it broke in the dream? He had really tried not to freak out when he saw the broken plane. It seemed like Vegard had bought his act, but inside he was having a mini melt down. Not only did the plane break in the dream, but the plane represented their partnership. So was the plane breaking symbolic in the dream?

Once again, he tried to fall asleep, but he was dreading the dream….


	3. Chapter 3

Friday 3:06 am - Day 5 of the dream

He woke up saying Vegard’s name and not knowing at all where he was. His pulse was racing and he was shaking so badly that he had a hard time turning on the bedside lamp. The dream was the same but seemed to be getting more and more detailed at the same time. He couldn’t explain how it could be the same and different at the same time, it was one of those weird dream things.

An almost uncontrollable urge was pushing him to call Vegard and check on him.

The strangest part - the part he hadn’t exactly realized until now - was that even though he knew that Vegard died, he wasn’t sure how. He just felt so confused and was starting to dread their trip to New York tomorrow. _I wish we’d never agreed to do that show. But now, there is no getting out of it. If I told Vegard that I wanted to drop out, he’d think I was nuts._

 _I wish I could call Vegard. No, he’d kill me if I woke him up at three in the morning. What am I a child?_   He closed his eyes and tried to think about anything but the dream, but he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

 

* * *

 

It was 7:00 am. He was surprised that he had gotten back to sleep because he was sure that he had still been awake at 5:30 am. He had picked up his phone to call Vegard, more than once, but had managed to talk himself out of it. His head was throbbing, probably from lack of sleep as well as worry. How could he not tell Vegard about this? He would know something was wrong as soon as he saw him. But how could he tell Vegard?

His thoughts were beginning to spin again and he decided to get out of bed. _Even if I can’t tell him about the dream, I think I’ll feel better when I see him. I just need to see him and know he is alright - no matter what that stupid dream tries to make me believe._

Bård found himself calling the familiar number before he really had thought it through. “Hello?” Vegard picked up the phone on the second ring. He was an early riser and Bård could tell that he had been up for a while.    

“Hey bro. Do you think you could give me a ride to work today? I’m...I have a headache and would rather not drive.” He hadn’t planned what he was going to say and this kind of fell out of his mouth, but at least it was mostly true.

“Bård. You’re up already? What are you doing up so early?” Vegard was chuckling.

“Oh, come on. Be nice…” Vegard was right.  He was rarely up this early, and certainly not unless there was a plane to catch or something like that.  But what should he say, ‘I’ve been having dreams that end with you dying, so I don’t want to sleep’?

Remembering last night, and how nice Bård had been about the plane, made him feel a little guilty about teasing Bård so early in the morning. “You have a headache? You’re not getting sick are you?”

“No. I just...I don’t know...do you want to come over and have breakfast here before work?” _What am I doing? He’s not going to want to come over and see me early before he comes to work and sees me all day._

“Uh...sure... I can come over. But maybe you want to sleep a little more...to see if you can get rid of your headache.”

“No!” That came out more emphatically than he had intended, but the last thing he wanted was to go back to sleep. “No, thanks, I’ll be ok. I just thought if you were coming over here to pick me up, we could eat together.”

Vegard agreed to come over and offered to stop on his way and pick something up for them to eat.

 

* * *

 

By the time Vegard arrived, Bård was starting to regret calling him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see him, although talking to him on the phone had eased his anxiety greatly, it was because of the stupid excuse he had given Vegard about wanting a ride because he had a headache. It had sounded like a mediocre excuse to him when he was talking with Vegard. But the longer he thought about it, and the more fully awake he had become, the more flimsy it sounded.

“Hey, Bård! I hope you unlocked your door for me, otherwise your security leaves much to be desired.”

“Yeah, yeah. I unlocked it for you. I figured you’d let yourself in either way.” Bård was in the kitchen, making a pot of tea. He moved towards the voice and the heavenly aroma that seemed to accompany it.

“I kind of prefer using my key.” Vegard was holding his key up, tauntingly.

“I know. How do I get that back from you?” He halfheartedly tried to grab it out of Vegard’s hand.

“Never!!” Vegard backed away.

They played this game often and both knew that Bård preferred him to have the key. Anyway, he was more interested in what was in the other hand. He still couldn’t see the writing on the bag that Vegard carried. “What did you bring for breakfast?” He could almost taste it from the aroma alone and was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“I stopped at Baker Brun for Cinnamon Buns.” They were a favorite of Bård’s going back to their childhood in Bergen.

Bård smiled and rubbed his hands together expectantly. “And that’s why I love you.”

“Just like mother used to buy.” He was glad to see Bård’s reaction. After they had talked this morning he started to worry a bit about Bård. He didn’t sound quite like himself. But it was a good sign that he was willing to eat.

After breakfast they headed in to work. Vegard could tell something was indeed up, but it was obvious Bård wasn’t ready to talk about it. There was no point in pressing him on it, he would open up eventually.

 

* * *

 

Calle wandered into the office at 10:00. Bård noticed him walking down the hall and wondered how he could arrive so late and look so casual about it. In reality, Calle probably arrived about that time every day, it just seemed later because Bård had actually been on time. He glanced at Vegard who was talking about something - Bård had tuned out five minutes ago - and could tell that Vegard thought nothing of Calle’s late arrival. He considered interrupting Vegard’s lecture but he was so tired, and once the lecture was over he would probably have to do something, so he decided to let Vegard talk for as long as possible.

After stopping in his office, Calle knocked on Vegard’s door. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

Vegard looked at Calle and smiled. “And why’s that?” He had a twinkle in his eye. Bård could tell that he knew exactly what Calle was going to say.

“Why did you walk off like that last night and leave me alone with Per?” Calle’s head was cocked to the right and he had the beginnings of a smile on his face.

Vegard shrugged. “You like Per.”

Calle scrunched up his nose like he smelled something unpleasant.  “Well, yeah….I don’t know. I think he’s become a bit of a prick.”

Vegard threw his hands up. “Why am I the last to find out what everyone thinks about him?”  

Bård piped up. “Because you’re nice and try to think well of everyone.”

Calle was a little surprised.  “So, you don’t like him either, Bård?”

“Well, I never liked him. I still don’t understand what your excuse is for ever liking him.” He looked back and forth between his brother and his friend.

“Maybe we built up our tolerance from having to put up with you.” Calle was kidding, but considering Per’s behavior the last couple of days, it made Vegard feel uncomfortable.

“You don’t know the half of it Calle. Don’t compare Bård to Per.”

“I wasn’t serious. You know that.” He looked at Bård. “Yeah, he said some stupid stuff about you last night.”

“What the fuck! I told him to shut up about Bård! I should have punched him when I had the chance.” Bård was taken aback to hear that come out of Vegard.

“What? Why would you do that?” He felt a twinge in his stomach.

“He’s an ass!” Bård wondered if anything he had said yesterday could possibly have changed Vegard's opinion of Per so quickly.

“What did he say?”  

“Nevermind. Just feel free to slap me if I ever consider inviting him over here again.”

“Well, I already feel free to slap you just ...about …. whenever.” He was a little embarrassed that Vegard was being so protective of him and had to make a joke out of it.

Vegard simply shook his head and chuckled. “I don’t know why I stick up for you.”

 

* * *

 

 

At 6:40 pm Vegard looked into Bård’s office. He was sitting at his desk but had fallen asleep with his head on the computer keyboard. The last line on his document was:

 

put down the sdgduuuuuuuuuuuuujjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj   

 

It reminded Vegard of something out of a B movie thriller where the detectives found the body of a victim who had tried to leave a clue before dying. He started laughing and when he accidentally snorted Bård started at the sound. “What!?! What’s so funny?”

“You are. I hope if you ever have to leave me a clue you leave a better one than that.”

Vegard could see an imprint of the keyboard on Bård’s left cheek. He must have been sleeping that way for a while. He inwardly cringed when he saw Bård rubbing his neck. He realized that could not have been good for his sore neck and with the long flight they had ahead of them he wished that Bård could have at least started out the trip without neck pain. He moved behind Bård’s desk to give him a neck massage. His stupid neck had bothered him for quite a while now and Vegard had gotten pretty good at knowing the spots that tended to tighten up and how to relax them. Sometimes Bård would push him away when he did this, not wanting to be the center of attention for something like that. But the office was pretty quiet now as most of the staff had already left, and he was still half asleep and therefore at his most cooperative.

After a few minutes Vegard finished. “Did that help?” He spoke quietly, not wanting to ruin whatever relaxation he may have induced.

“Yeah, thanks.” Vegard was better at relieving his neck pain than any of the multiple Chiropractors he had seen. He had never quite figured out how to ask him for a neck rub, but fortunately Vegard could usually see it on his face when he needed some relief.

“Is that party for Calle still on?”

“Of course! We shouldn’t stay too long, we have that early flight out, but I don’t want to skip his birthday party. We’ve delayed celebrating it long enough as it is.”

“I just have to pack my computer and a couple of other things.” Vegard was about to leave to do likewise. “Wait. What did you say about me leaving a clue?”

Vegard simply pointed at the computer screen and Bård exhaled a chuckle. “You have been watching way too many old movies.”

 

* * *

 

The party was at a bar in downtown Oslo. When you walked in, there was a large, square bar to the right and there were a number of high top tables crowded together on the other side. Walking further back there was an elevated area with larger tables and comfortable stuffed chairs and to the left a few gathering areas with couches and upholstered chairs. The lighting was low and there was a small stage for a band, but no live music yet. The bar wasn’t reserved for the party, but the brothers recognised a lot of the people there as Calle’s friends. Calle spotted them not long after they arrived and came over to greet them.  “Hey! I thought you guys were going to stand me up!”

“As if!” “Happy Birthday!” They both gave Calle hugs and genially pushed him around between the two of them.

“Alright! Alright! Stop it! I know you can’t get enough of me but I have a lot of people here and I have to share my love.”

Calle leaned over to Bård and whispered, “I should probably tell you...Per’s here. I sort of mentioned the party when I spoke to him yesterday. A few of our college friends are here. Somehow I invited him.”

“I don’t care. You can invite whoever you want, Calle. It’s your birthday.”

“I know, but I think Vegard is really pissed at him. Just keep them apart, ok?”

Bård sighed. He didn’t usually have to be the one who was trying to keep things civil. And certainly not at a party. But, he didn’t want Calle to have to deal with that at his own birthday party. “Sure. No problem. I’ll babysit my brother if you’d like.”

Calle laughed. Bård would have to make it sound like a terrible imposition to hang out with Vegard. He’d seen them work a party before. They’d usually go talk to different people and to the untrained eye it would look as if they had ignored each other the whole time. But they would keep the distance between themselves at no more than 15 feet apart. They were obviously at least semi-aware of each other’s location at all times. When one wanted the other to come over and join a conversation, it was often signaled wordlessly. “Yeah, well see if you can put up with his presence tonight.”

About twenty minutes later, Vegard looked at Bård with a raised eyebrow. “Are you stalking me?”

“No. I’m just supposed to make sure you behave.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“Who are you, and what did you do with my brother?” Vegard was clearly puzzled.

“Calle was worried...Per’s here.” He stepped to the side and immediately Per was in Vegard’s line of vision.

Vegard hadn’t noticed Per yet, but Bård had spotted him and was subtly encouraging Vegard to move away from him or, when that failed, at least was blocking his view of him. “What do you think I’m going to do, go punch him now?”

“I told you, Calle was worried. He asked me to watch you. I wanted to slap Per’s face the first second I saw him two days ago, so I’m not sure I can be relied on to stop you if you decide to hit him. I thought it best just to keep you away from him.”

Vegard was laughing quietly. “Don't worry, he isn't worth it. I’ll behave myself. Go enjoy yourself for a while. We should leave in half an hour or so.”

Bård was happy to be relieved of duty. He started chatting with a couple of the writers on their staff and completely lost track of Per. They all gravitated to a cosy corner where there was a leather couch and an overstuffed highback armchair. Bård took a spot on the couch and got comfortable, putting his feet up on the coffee table in front of him. He noticed that Vegard had started talking with a few college friends. It was about then that Erik told his story about taking the train from Bergen to Oslo. He’d heard it before, but he always ended up doubled over with laughter, tears in his eyes. It was a classic.

The next thing Bård knew, it got suddenly louder over by the bar.  He looked in the direction of the ruckus but could only see a crowd of people. He looked around for Vegard - somehow he had lost track of him too. Stepping on the coffee table to get a better view, he spotted Vegard over by the bar in a shoving match with Per. Bård made use of his long legs to get himself quickly to the edge of the crowd and then managed to push himself through to the front.

Stepping in front of the gawkers, he saw that Calle had now insinuated himself between Vegard and Per. He was grabbing Per who seemed intent on swinging an empty beer mug at Vegard. Vegard was still trying to get at Per rather than moving back in a rational, Vegard-like manner. Bård jumped in front of him and pushed him backwards. “Vegard! Vegard! What are you doing?”

“He’s running his mouth off again. I’m just trying to shut him up!”

“Stop it!”  Bård had his hands on either arm of Vegard, still pushing him back. “Stop it. Calm down.”

Bård’s presence had already had a calming effect as he wasn’t going to physically fight with Bård to get at Per. He finally broke his stare with Per and looked at Bård.

“Vegard, what is going on? What happened to ‘he isn’t worth it’ ?” Bård was steadily bringing his voice down so that now only Vegard could easily hear him.

Vegard looked back at Per and started getting worked up again. “He’s just so….you were right...I should really...”

“Vegard! Look at me. Come on. Stay here.” 

“I don’t know why he says the stuff he does about you, but it pisses me off.” Vegard was still obviously upset, but had brought his voice down too.  

“Ok...but this is not a good idea. Please don’t make me be the voice of reason.” Bård exhaled a small laugh and relaxed a bit seeing that Vegard had finally stopped and taken a breath. “Dare I ask? What did he say?”

Vegard looked at him, considering, and then shook his head. “I’d rather not…”

“That’s probably wise.” He still had a hold of Vegard’s arms and took a quick look over his shoulder to verify that Per was at a safe distance. “Look at you, you’re being the reasonable one again. Thank god, you’re back.” A smile began to tug at the corners of Vegard’s lips. “Come on, maybe we should go…” Bård gently pulled Vegard toward the door.

When they got to the car, Vegard's anger had subsided enough that he started thinking about the scene that he must have caused. “Fuck! Did I ruin Calle’s party?”

“No! It was a little boring up until that point. Don’t you agree?” 

 

* * *

 

Vegard dropped him off at home. Before Bård let him leave, he made him swear that he wasn’t going to go back to the bar. Seeing Vegard that angry upset Bård. He was never that way, but tonight Bård had felt like he might just go back to finish his fight with Per. He had tried to get more information out of him on the ride home, but Vegard had obviously decided that he didn’t want to tell him what Per had said.

In spite of Vegard’s promise that he was going straight home, Bård gave him a call fifteen minutes later just to make sure he had followed through. “Come on, Bård. You’d read me the riot act if I checked up on you.”

Vegard was right, but he didn’t care. He knew he’d never sleep if he’d been left wondering. “It’s your own fault. You upset the world order by making me the responsible one tonight. I’m going to have to go take a shower now to wash that feeling off my skin.”

“Fine.” He could tell Vegard was smiling. “You’re not that good at it anyway.”

After they said goodbye, he sat on the edge of the bed for a long time replaying the evening in his mind. He should have known it would happen, but it had seemed so very unlikely. Even when Calle had asked him to keep an eye on Vegard, he hadn’t really thought it a possibility. Not seriously. But Vegard had gotten into a fight tonight. Granted he hadn’t gotten a black eye like in the dream, and he wasn’t sure if any punches had actually been thrown, but for crying out loud how could he not feel like it counted?

 

Vegard had gotten in a fight.

 

Like in the dream.

 

Shit!


	4. Chapter 4

Saturday 3:20 am - Day 6 of the dream

 

He looked at the clock. It was way too early to be up for the day. But the thought of going back to sleep was so daunting that he really couldn’t even consider it anymore. He stood back up and decided to get ready for their flight.

Maybe a shower would wash away the sick feeling that still lingered from that infernal dream. He reached in the shower and turned the water on to let it warm up. Leaning on the vanity he looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were very red. When he had woken up from the dream this time he was crying. Maybe he hadn’t woken up fully, maybe that was why he had cried for so long. He wasn’t sure. But he had stood in the bathroom and thrown cold water on his face for what seemed like five minutes before he had finally been able to calm down.

That had been an hour ago or so. _Great! Jet lag is bad enough without having to start out completely sleep deprived. But, no matter. I’ll have to try to sleep on the plane._ He stepped into the now hot shower and turned it down to a comfortable temperature. When he just concentrated on the feeling of the spray on his face he could block out the images from the dream. It occurred to him that he was so tired he might fall asleep standing there. _That would be lovely, sleeping in this warmth, but I’m pretty sure falling on the tile would destroy the relaxing effect._

While he was getting dressed he noticed that he had a new text message on his phone. It was from Calle and it had been sent to both him and Vegard last night.

 

         Friday, 10:47 pm

         Bård - you suck at keeping an eye on Vegard. 

         Vegard - you suck at having a proper fight with Per. He didn’t have a scratch on him when he left.

 

         Friday, 10:52 pm

         You guys should have stayed - I told Per to leave once I’d gotten him calmed down. But I suppose you have that early flight in the morning.

         Thanks for making my party one to remember! I’m going to plan something appropriately exciting for your next birthday, Bård.

 

Vegard had responded to the group text as well.

 

         Friday, 10:59 pm

         I’m so sorry. Bård does suck. How dare he listen to me when I say I’ll behave? When we get back I’ll make sure that Bård tries to make it up to you.

He considered adding some comment to the exchange, but then he’d have to explain why he was up at three something in the morning and that didn’t seem worth it. At least Calle didn’t seem too upset with them.

 

* * *

 

Vegard let himself into the house at 6:00 am sharp and was surprised to see Bård’s bags lined up by the door. “What’s this? Your bags are ready to go? What’s gotten into you Ylvasåker?” Even at this early hour he looked relaxed and pulled together.

Bård, on the other hand, was having a hard time finding his passport. _I’ve been up since 3am, how can I not be ready?_ “Oh, you know, just trying to be more responsible. You said I wasn’t very good at it.”

Vegard cocked his head to one side and looked quizzically at Bård. “What? Last night? I was kidding.”

Bård didn’t respond. He was focused on the desk. _Where could I have put it?_

“Well, mostly kidding,” Vegard added, trying to get some response. Bård responded with with a weary smile.

Looking through some papers on his desk, Bård was getting more anxious.  “I guess I was trying to be funny. It’s too early.”

He was obviously searching for something. “So, do you want to tell me what you’re looking for?”

Glancing up, he could see an amused look on his brother’s face. “This isn’t funny, I don’t know where it is.”

“Seriously? Are we talking about your passport?” Vegard was now next to the desk.

“Yes. I know, how stupid…” The stress in his voice was palpable.

Vegard place a hand on Bård’s shoulder. “Relax. We’ll find it.” He noticed that Bård looked tired. “Where do you usually keep it?”

“In the kitchen. In that basket by the refrigerator.” Vegard turned heel and headed to the kitchen. “It’s not there. I already looked.”  

“Yes, well, it doesn’t appear to be on the desk either so I thought I’d look over there.” Vegard went straight to the basket. He found it almost immediately. “It’s right here.”

“What? I looked there.” Relief washed over Bård.

Vegard came out of the kitchen waving the passport in front of him. “It’s a good thing, too. I would have hated to go without you.” He smiled teasingly.

“Yeah...well....you…...” His mind was a blank. “I’ve got nothing.”

Vegard paused. He looked a little closer at Bård. “That’s got to be a first. Didn’t you get enough sleep last night?.”

“I had a hard time getting to sleep.”  Which was the truth, at least part of the truth.

Vegard started to hand the passport over. “Here you go. It was practically lying on top.”  At the last second he pulled it back, out of Bård’s hand.  “Or, should I hang onto it for you?”

“Just give it to me!” Bård sounded actually irritated, rather than the jokingly irritated that Vegard had expected.

“Seriously, you look really tired. Are you alright? You’re not getting sick, are you?”

Bård looked at Vegard. This was not the time. “I’m fine.”

 

* * *

 

They arrived at the airport in plenty of time. Bård called it “Vegard time”. It was a point of contention that drove Bård a bit crazy on a good day, so today it made him feel a little angry.  “We could practically still be in bed we got here so early. What, do you get some kickback from the airport eateries if you can drag people here super early?”

“We’re not that early.” Vegard checked his watch. It was an international flight and they had the large carry-on that held their costumes. So far they’d always been able to stow it in the closet at the front of the plane. Vegard felt that getting to the gate early and talking nicely to the airline attendant had insured that their squirrel and bear costumes stayed in the cabin with them.

He waited for the stupid remark, swearing, even the finger, some sort of response, but got none. They still had a long way to walk to their gate and he didn’t want to do it in silence. “Are you mad at me, Bård?”

Bård shrugged.

“I really didn’t mean to let that happen last night.”

Bård looked at him, but he looked a little confused.

“Getting in a fight with Per. That was stupid. And I promised you I wouldn’t so…” He was searching Bård’s face for what would normally be all the answer he needed. But Bård was still processing what exactly they were talking about. “I don’t think Calle is mad......did you think so from the text last night?

“Oh. No, I don’t think he’s upset.” All he could think was that Vegard was asking too many questions.

They walked past a few more gates in silence.

“But what about you? Are you angry or something?”

“Vegard, I’m not mad. I’m just tired. Can we not talk?”

“Sure.” This was their gate. “I guess.” They sought out the most private corner they could find in the wide open space of the gate seating and set everything down in a pile.

“Would you mind talking to them about our carry-on?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. Of course Vegard was going to be the one to go talk to them.

Bård looked like he very much needed a nap. _Fat chance you’re going to get any sleep here at the gate, but I can go talk to them if you’d like._ “Yeah, no problem. Try not to fall asleep until I get back, we need to keep an eye on our luggage.” As he waited in line he looked over at his brother who looked to be asleep.

The woman at the desk had the look. The look of someone who was a fan but didn’t want to say anything, perhaps out of embarrassment or maybe out of politeness. Regardless, he had only said a few words when she promised him it would be no problem. Walking back over to Bård, he realized that he still hadn’t seen Bård open his eyes once to check on their belongings.

Bård was scrunched down in his chair with his legs up on the chair on the other side of the corner. He supposed that Bård thought he was protecting their things that way, but he really didn’t think you could say he was doing due diligence. He pushed Bård’s legs off the chair and sat down. “Hey! Why do you have to sit there?”

“Why can’t you watch our stuff for five minutes?” 

Bård turned his back to Vegard and tried to curl up in his chair. He was tired and a little hurt that Vegard would ruin what he saw as his only chance of being at all comfortable.

Five minutes passed with a tense silence.

“Bård.” Vegard’s voice had a conciliatory tone.

“Shut up.”

“Bård.” He could hear Vegard passing in front of his chair, but kept his eyes closed.

“What!?”

Vegard sat in the chair next to him. “I’m sorry. That was kind of mean.”

Opening an eye he looked suspiciously at his brother. 

“I mean it. I’m tired too...but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Let’s not get mad at each other before we even start the trip.”

“I really was paying attention to our stuff….” Bård was still feeling a little indignant.

“I know. Your legs formed an impenetrable shield.” Vegard was being sarcastic, but in a way that he knew Bård usually appreciated.

Bård tried to maintain his hurt, misjudged expression but a “pfffft” escaped his lips.

“Are we good?”  

Bård nodded and began turning around in his seat. “Can I lean against you?” 

“What do you think?” Vegard shook his head as Bård put his legs back up and leaned his head against him. _Sometimes it’s like I’m traveling with a child. Still, he did look pretty tired this morning. I’ll try to cut him some slack._

 

* * *

 

Bård didn’t mind traveling, but it was always so much more relaxing once the plane had taken off. There was nothing to worry about. No flight delays, no gate changes, no misdirected luggage. Well, the luggage was still a question mark, but at this point whatever was going to happen would happen. There were no demands on your time, you could just sleep or….maybe talk about ... whatever was on your mind.

Vegard was sitting next to him in the window seat, staring contentedly at the clouds. Bård contemplated telling him about the dream. _We’ve got plenty of time to talk about it. He might find it entertaining and I would probably feel better if I just told him._ He had just about talked himself into it when he looked over and saw that Vegard was asleep. He felt a bit envious. He so wanted to close his eyes and get some much needed sleep, but he was worried that he might have the dream again.

He pulled out his backpack which was filled with potential distractions. The book that Vegard had suggested was sitting on top so he took it out. It was a mystery thriller by an author who was very popular right now. His first novel had just been made in to a movie, but this was his fourth and newest novel. Bård did his best to get into it, but everytime he started the first sentence an image of the broken Concorde in Vegard’s office popped into his head. He’d get to the bottom of the page and have no idea what he had just read. After about ten minutes of staring at the first page, he decided to try again later.  His iPad had a whole slew of potential time wasters, but none of them really appealed to him. He finally decided to look through the selection of inflight movies thinking that sitting and staring at a screen was about the activity level he was up for.

Bård suffered through one and a half painfully bad movies before he finally gave in to sleep. He needed sleep so badly that the possibility of waking up crying, or worse yet screaming, was a chance he was willing to take. He fell asleep wondering how he would explain his screams to a Sky Marshal and wondering if Vegard would admit to knowing him if that happened. Fortunately, he slept peacefully and didn’t wake up until Vegard gently shook his arm. “We’re here. You’d better wake up.”

Still exhausted, he just wanted a few more minutes. “Not yet.”

“Bård, we’re already at the gate. They’ll open the door soon.” Vegard had waited as long as possible to rouse his brother.

Knowing that he had no choice, Bård started packing his iPad and the book back into his backpack.

 

* * *

 

After dropping their things off at the hotel they took a cab to the Barclays Center for their rehearsal. The traffic from the airport to the hotel had been terrible and they were late. Hopefully their representatives in New York would have the other animal costumes there already. The costumes had been sent ahead of time, almost three weeks ago now. They had decided that it would be too much for them to drag around a dozen costumes besides their own.  And they thought that if the worst happened, and the package got lost in shipping, they would have time to find some replacements or even have something made. They knew that the costumes had arrived in New York, now their only worry was if their reps would get them to the right place.

The arena was quite large and full of activity. They headed straight towards the stage as it was almost their scheduled rehearsal time and were met by an Assistant Producer from MTV. From what they could see there were a lot of AP’s running around trying to assist the many other performers that were also there. The AP, who introduced herself as Amy, led them to a conference room that had their name on it. She said they had been directing their dancers and the actors who would be playing the animals to gather there. It was a rather large room.  They spotted the animal costumes hanging up on a rack. That was a relief.

Amy called to everyone who had gathered there to follow her, it was time. Amy turned to Vegard. “We have to be really strict with our rehearsal times, so the good news is that as soon as we get there, whoever else is rehearsing will have to leave. The bad news is you’ll be kicked out at the end of your time whether you’re done or not.”

They took the stage and looked for their set. A house to the left that was to resemble the one from the video and a forest setting to the right that was to take up more than half of the stage. It wasn’t there.

“Amy, where’s the set?” Vegard was not happy.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. It’s not quite done. It will be ready for dress rehearsal tomorrow. I promise. So, I don’t know, just pretend.” Someone was talking in her headset and she walked off talking to them about some other issue.

Vegard just looked at Bård. He misread Bård’s face as being unhappy about this situation, rather than as him freaking out about being there at all. “How are we supposed to practice you coming down the stairs without the stairs?”

Bård just shrugged. He was amazed at how much this looked like the arena in his dream.

“Come on Bård. We have to figure this out!”

Snapping to, Bård went on autopilot and tried to figure out the staging. “Vegard. See if they have the playback so we can walk through it with the music.”

Vegard took off to find Amy, but fortunately ran into one of the Assistant Directors, who was really the person he needed anyway.

Lining up the “animals” in order, Bård tried to talk them through what it would be like tomorrow. The dancers were over on the right side where the forest hopefully would be. There was a lead dancer who had studied videos from other performances and had been paid to teach the others their parts. They looked like they at least somewhat knew what they were doing. The music started and Bård, who was still explaining the choreography to the animals, had to run back to his spot. He started singing and walking on the flat stage, about where he thought the steps would be. There was no microphone - the Assistant Director was talking to some soundmen trying to get what they needed.

Moving over to the forest, Bård sang his fox sounds while the dancers behind him danced. That was about the only thing that had gone right. Vegard came out singing his verse and Bård could tell that he was pretty ticked off. Most likely no one else could tell, he was smiling at the right times, but there was a look behind his eyes that Bård had learned to avoid. The rest of the song went. It didn’t go well, it just went.

The Assistant Director, Peter, seemed pleased, which honestly was more than a little annoying to Vegard. _Don’t they care how this looks?_ Peter said that they had time to run it two more times if they started right away.

“I have to tell the animals where they’re supposed go, or this is pointless.” Bård looked completely frustrated.

Vegard nodded in agreement. “But don’t take too long. We can practice in the conference room afterwards. We have to do this at least one more time.”

“Find out about the cables.” Vegard grabbed Peter and tried to iron out that detail.

The music started and they ran through the song again. The animals were at least attempting to follow Bård’s instructions and mostly ended up where they were supposed to be. And then it was over. They were told unceremoniously that their time was up.

They walked over to the conference room, discussing what they wanted to rehearse. Vegard was calling everyone to attention when he noticed that a few of them were picking up their things and heading towards the door. “Um…listen. We could really use a few more minutes of your time.”

The lead dancer spoke up. “Oh...I’m sorry. I have a show to get to and so do three of the other dancers. It’ll be our call time soon.”

Some of the actors started talking at the same time. “I do, too.” “I’m a little late already.”

When they realized how many people had to leave, they decided that rehearsal wasn’t really going to work with so many people missing.

“Alright, dress rehearsal is at three tomorrow. Everyone be here by two so that you can get your makeup done.” Vegard tried to sound upbeat and positive, but he was about ready to kill someone.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a more poorly organised rehearsal." The only people left in the conference room were Bård and Vegard. "It was awful. Just awful! No head mics? No set?!? I can’t believe this!” Vegard was kicking chairs and generally having a fit. “And the cables! We can’t practice that until tomorrow either!”

Bård sat down and put his head in his hands. He didn’t even want to be there and now the whole rehearsal was a disaster. It didn’t help that Vegard was yelling on the other side of the room. He did realise that Vegard wasn’t actually yelling at him, but still.

Vegard finally noticed his brother, sitting in the chair, almost looking like he was trying to become invisible. “Bård.” He came up to Bård’s chair and squatted next to him. “Bård, I’m sorry. I’m not yelling at you.”

“I know. Let’s just go back to the hotel and get some sleep.” He sounded so dejected that it softened Vegard a bit.

“No you don’t. You need to eat something, we both do. Then we can go to sleep.”

Bård wanted to protest, but he knew he would not win this battle.

 

* * *

 

That night he lay in bed for a long time just thinking. He could hear Vegard in the other bed as his breathing changed to the slow, deep, regular breathing of sleep. It was reassuring to have him there...although that’s not something he would ever tell him. He was drained from so many sleepless nights in a row, but still he felt like he would rather not sleep tonight. He couldn’t stand the thought of that dream. He wondered why he was having it. At first he had thought it had to do with his feelings about the performance but, even though this was a big show, he never got that nervous about performances. He enjoyed performing and having Vegard there (and he would never tell Vegard this either) gave him a tremendous sense of security.

It was probably while he was thinking about that sense of security that he drifted off to sleep.

 

And

 

eventually

  
to that dream.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting kind of long, so here is the first part of their performance day.

Sunday  2:13 am - Day 7 of the dream

 

“No!!!“ Vegard opened his eyes slightly. _What’s going on?_ “No!” He woke up enough to recognize that it was Bård talking, shouting really, in his sleep.

“Hey, Bård! Wake up.” Vegard rolled over to face his brother.

“No!” Bård was breathing hard. “No!” He almost sounded like he was going to cry.

“Bård, wake up!” Bård wasn’t hearing him. “Bård!!”

Vegard rolled out of bed and started shaking Bård’s shoulder. “Wake up! It’s just a dream. Wake up!!”

Bård jumped as if Vegard had startled him and looked at him with tearful eyes. That was when Vegard realized Bård was crying and had been crying the whole time. “Bård, it’s ok.” Bård seemed to look right through him and was quietly whimpering, “No, no, no.”  

“Bård?”  It occurred to him that even though Bård’s eyes were open, he wasn’t fully awake. He sat down on the bed next to Bård and rubbed his arm. “Come on, wake up. You’re safe. We’re just here in a hotel room. Everything is ok.”  Bård finally seemed to wake more fully. He quieted and hastily he tried to wipe away any evidence of tears. “Oh...ok….I’m sorry I woke you up.”  His voice didn’t sound normal to Vegard. “That’s alright. ” Vegard tried to comfort him by continuing to rub his arm. “You seemed pretty upset. A bad dream?”

“Uh-huh.” He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will those images away.

“Was something chasing you?” Vegard reached over and turned on the bedside lamp.

“No.”

“Did someone get hurt?”

“Uh...no.” He didn’t know why he had lied.

“So, what then? Did someone die?”

There was a long pause before Bård finally answered. “Yeah.” He was still breathing hard and trying to curb his emotions.

Vegard could tell he was holding back. “Wait … was I dead?”  He was sort of smiling. It was a dream after all and he thought it was humorous, as if Bård’s subconscious was trying to get rid of him.

Bård wasn't sure what to say.  He was pretty sure that if he said yes, Vegard would make a joke about it.  Even though usually that would be fine, he just couldn't handle it right now.

"Bård, was it me?" _I don’t understand why he won’t answer me._ “Come on Bård. I feel like I’m playing twenty questions.”

"Yes. Look, please don't make fun of me. Not tonight. It was just so..... so real. " His voice trailed off at the end.

"I'm not....” Actually, he was just about to make a joke. It was on the tip of his tongue. “I won't make fun of you."

Bård closed his eyes and saw the now familiar woman from his dreams say, “I’m so sorry, but you’re brother is dead.” He opted to keep his eyes open.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Vegard heard a very quiet, ”Not really,” as a response. “Come on. If you tell me about it, you’ll stop thinking about it.” He decided that if they were going to talk, he was going to get comfortable.  "Move over." He pushed  Bård over a bit and lay down beside him.  "I know what you mean, some dreams do seem very real."

Bård looked like he'd seen a ghost. He sat up and said, "Why'd you do that? "

"Do what? Lie down? It’s the middle of the night, Bård, I’m kinda tired.” Bård just stared at him, speechless. “Come on, we're just talking."

Bård couldn’t hold it in any longer, he had to tell him.  He told him about the dream and about how many of the things that happened in the dream had happened in real life. Not just normal things, but things you wouldn’t expect.  “...and the rehearsal from hell… and then you lie down next to me in night seven of my dream." That was something that hadn't happened for a long time and Bård had been fairly certain that it wouldn’t happen.

"And what happens when I lie down next to you?"

"Nothing. That's not the point.  It's just that so many of those things have happened. I'm afraid that the rest will come true too"

Vegard could see how upset Bård was about this dream. He was searching for a way to make it better. “Look, we hang out on the same bed playing video games lots of times when we travel together.”

“That’s different.”

“I’m just saying it’s not so unusual.” He looked at Bård and recognized that he really needed some rest. “Come on, just lay back down. You need some sleep.”

Bård sighed and lay back down. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

“You’re not losing your mind, but a lack of sleep does tend to make you feel that way.” Bård shot him a look like he wasn’t sure if he should take offense. “I don’t mean ‘you’, I mean ‘anyone’.” He reached over to hug Bård and then pulled back, feeling Bård tense up. “I was just going to hug you for a second. You’re so jumpy!” He could tell Bård was upset again. “Did this happen in your dream too?”

Bård let out his breath. “Yeah.”

Vegard was quiet for a while. “What happened next? Did I punch you in your arm?”

“What? No.”

Vegard playfully punched Bård in the arm. “I’m just trying to break the pattern.” He laughed a bit.

Bård frowned at him but couldn’t help starting to smile at the same time. “So that’s your plan?”

“Yup, your dream zigs, I zag.”

Bård snickered at that. He knew it wasn’t that funny, but he was so tired.

“Let’s try to get some sleep. I’ll move if you want…”

“No…. you don’t have to.” Vegard wasn’t surprised that Bård kind of wanted him to stay. His brother had always liked having him near the more exhausted he was. “I don’t think I can sleep though.”

“Sure you can, just relax. Come on, close your eyes.” Vegard turned the lamp back off. “If you’d like I could tell you all about the gravitational pull of the moon or something. That usually puts you to sleep.”

Bård snorted and was actually smiling for the first time in days. “You’re so weird.”

“I know. It’s comforting though, isn’t it?”

Bård’s eyes were closed. “Yeah, it kind of is.”

 

* * *

 

A few hours later Vegard woke again to Bård's pleading voice.  "No!  Nooo! Nooo!"  He had intended to move back to his own bed once he was certain that Bård had fallen asleep, but he must have drifted off.  He rolled over and shook Bård's shoulder.  "Hey, wake up! Wake up!"

"Nooo! Where are you?!"  Vegard shook him harder.  "Bård! Wake up!!"

"Wha... what? " Bård opened his eyes and looked around somewhat confused.  Realizing that Vegard was there, and that he was crying,  Bård covered his face with his hands. "Vegard," he murmured.

"Did you have that dream again?"  Vegard had seen how scared Bård looked before he covered his face. He moved a little closer to Bård and hugged him. This time Bård didn’t pull away.

After a while he asked, "Was it the same dream?"

"Yes. I mean no. No. This one was different.”

“Did someone die?”

Bård nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know. It was so ...confusing. You were there but you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Where was ‘there’?”

“It was a funeral. There were a lot of people. I was ...I was just trying to get you to talk to me. I don’t know why you wouldn’t talk to me. I think ….maybe...you were a ghost. And then, eventually, I was standing all alone in a cemetery. That’s when you woke me up.”

 

* * *

 

They didn’t get much sleep after waking from the second dream. Vegard had coaxed Bård into attempting to go back to sleep but, he was so keyed up that it took him quite a while to drift off. Once Bård had fallen asleep Vegard, realizing it was a little irrational, felt like he should stay awake in case Bård had another dream.  

At 7:00 am when Vegard was awakened by the beeping of his phone. Even though they didn’t need to be at the Barclays Center before 1:30 pm, they had multiple interviews scheduled for earlier in the day.  He was somewhat surprised that he had fallen back to sleep. He looked over at his brother who apparently was in a deep sleep and had not heard the beeping at all. For a moment he felt a little bad for Bård, knowing how many sleepless nights he’d had, but then he decided that the best way to take Bård’s mind off of it was to act normal.

He started nudging him with his elbow. “Hey. Bård. Wake up.” Bård groaned slightly and rolled over. His light snoring indicated that he was still in a deep sleep. Vegard leaned over and spoke gently but urgently into his ear. “Bård. Bård, you’re going to be late for school.” He enjoyed messing with Bård when he was sleeping so hard because it was usually pretty comical. “You’re going to miss the bus.”

Bård sat up and looked around. “The bus?” He jumped out of bed, but then became awake enough to realize where he was. Falling back onto the bed, he grabbed a pillow and hit Vegard in the face with it.

“Good morning, sunshine.” Vegard was laughing at the scene. “I can’t believe after all these years you still think you might need to get up for school.”

“You suck! Just for that you have to take the first shower.”

“Well that’s just stupid. I always have to take the first shower.”

Bård was laughing at that as he grabbed his pillow and tried to get more comfortable in the bed.

Vegard got up and threw his pillow at Bård as he left to get ready.

 

* * *

 

The morning had gone as planned with a few short network tv interviews. Vegard noticed that his brother was more quiet than usual, but assumed it was due to the amount of missed sleep that he had accumulated over the past week. He considered bringing up Bård’s dreams, but was hoping that in the light of day they didn’t seem so significant.

For Bård, the morning seemed to be going way too quickly as they were getting closer and closer to evening and the performance. He could tell, by the way Vegard didn’t allow any period of silence to go on too long between them, that he didn’t want to talk any more about the dreams. He wasn’t surprised. Not only had he expected Vegard not buy into the validity of worrying about a dream, but he knew that his brother wouldn’t be that comfortable hearing about concerns for his safety, at least not out in the open with so many people around.

 

* * *

 

When they arrived at the arena, they looked for Amy. They needed to find out about the status of their set. Vegard was silently wondering how they had let themselves get talked into something so much more complicated than they needed. Originally they hadn’t planned on anything so elaborate. When they had won International Favorite Artist at the MAMA, their set had been pretty paired down except for the giant inflatable fox. Calle had had a field day with that! It was at least three weeks of constant comments and even Bård was getting tired of it at the end.

The idea of recreating the house from the video had been MTV’s and obviously this being a music video award show he had understood their desire to make it visually appealing. But he and Bård had quite a bit of experience with stage shows, and they knew that having Bård coming down the steps while singing the first verse was something that needed to be timed out perfectly. Normally they would have practiced it for at least few weeks until it had become second nature. That didn’t even account for the actors playing the animals who had to walk up the stairs and pass him at the exact moment he sang about them. Who knew how much experience they had with choreography? They really should have insisted that the actors had dance experience as well, but it was difficult to control those things when you weren’t even on the same continent during the planning stages.

Finally one of the AP’s was able to tell Amy that they were there and she appeared with a frazzled smile on her face. “The set. I’m sure you want to see the set.” She signaled for them to follow her to the backstage area of the arena. Vegard had hurriedly caught up to her and was drilling her with questions. While she was answering he turned around to make sure that Bård was still there. He wasn’t. Vegard rolled his eyes and kept going.

There were a number of fairly elaborate sets and props backstage. He followed Amy past quite a few of the sets until they saw it. It was an amazingly well done set. The squarish flat-roofed house with the large windows and ample deck looked strikingly identical to the one used in the video, at least it did from a distance as they approached it. Walking around to the back it was what you would expect, a set. High quality, american tv scenery, but it was fake nonetheless.

The deck was much smaller than that of the actual house, about eighteen feet wide but only six to eight feet deep. The staircase coming down from the deck of the “house” had the same metal railing as the one from the video had. There had been a decision to deviate from the way the staircase on the actual house turned ninety degrees at the landing and instead have it continue straight down in one line from the landing. It had to do partly with camera angles but mainly with the timing of getting Bård from the bottom of the steps and over to the forest for his fox sounds as quickly as possible. Pleased with the way the house looked, Vegard asked Amy to show him the forest.

Meanwhile, Bård had decided that the only way he could handle doing this performance was to make sure that everything was completely safe. While Vegard had been trying to find Amy to check on the set, Bård took a different AP aside and insisted on talking to the Stunt Coordinator. The Stunt Coordinator, Scott, was on his way to meet Bård when Amy had signaled for them to follow her, so Bård had slowly followed and then turned around to wait.  

Scott was a fit man in his early forties who definitely looked like a stuntman. However, Bård wanted to make sure he knew what he was doing when it came to the safety of the harnesses and cables. He asked him a number of questions and insisted on having all of the equipment checked again before they used it. Scott was an experienced Stunt Coordinator and honestly thought that lifting the two of them up a few feet with a cable wasn’t that big of a deal. But he was also used to working with people who didn’t do stunts for a living, as well as production companies and insurance companies who didn’t want their stars getting injured, so this wasn’t an unusual request. He called his assistant and told him where he was going and then he took Bård with him as he checked their equipment and had Bård wait on the ground as he examined the rigging up above. Everything passed his inspection, much to Bård’s relief.

It actually turned out to be a good thing that they had spoken as no one had told Scott that Bård would be coming down the stairs prior to being lifted by the cable. Scott said that they could have him begin the song with his cable attached like Vegard’s would be but, because he didn’t have a lot of time to set it up since the performance was today, it would probably be safest if the cable were hanging at stage level and attached to him once he was off of the staircase. After they talked about it for a few minutes they figured out that someone could attach the cable to his harness during Vegard’s fox sounds. Bård looked at his phone and realized that he needed to get to their conference room and get dressed. He thanked Scott and hurried off, knowing that Vegard was probably irritated with him.


	6. Chapter 6

Bård arrived at the conference room only to find no Vegard. A few of the animals and most of the dancers were there, but no Vegard. That was odd. He turned around to go and look for him and practically ran into Amy.

“Oh, I haven’t shown you your dressing room yet. You and your brother have your own space. He’s already brought your costumes in there.” Bård followed Amy a little ways down the hall to an area where there were some smaller rooms. He passed a number of doors, each with a different but very familiar, famous name taped to it, until they came to the one that said Ylvis.

Vegard was irritated with him until he explained why he had disappeared. He told Bård that if checking on the equipment made him feel better about doing the performance, then it was time well spent. He thought to himself that checking the equipment was something he should have insisted on anyway but, not wanting to draw Bård’s attention to concerns about safety any more than necessary today, he left that unsaid.

 

* * *

 

They got to the stage 20 minutes early. The house set had been moved to the staging area. It was in four separate pieces but it was still recognizable. Bård walked around the back of the set and saw that there was a back staircase leading up to the deck. Vegard nudged Bård and said, “You better make sure the deck is actually there before you step out onto it.”

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

Vegard hadn’t realized before that the set came apart, although it made a lot of sense for it’s mobility. He asked the stage manager how they could tell when it was put together properly. He said that the deck snugged into the “L” shape of the rest of the house and then the three pieces of railing, from the deck to the upper staircase to the landing/lower staircase, locked together. So you didn’t have to worry about stepping down only to find that a stair wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

Bård stood back and admired the set. He began to run through the entire song in his head. He was to begin at the top of the stairway and walk down the stairs as he sang. Just as in the video, the various animals would walk one by one past him as he sang their sounds. Although since he needed to end up at the bottom - on the stage - their choreographer had decided it would work better if the animals walked up the stairs and passed him as he walked down.

The forest would be to the right and the coup de grace of the performance would be when they were raised up off the ground by cables that were attached to the harnesses hidden under their costumes.

They had needed special permission to make any alterations to the costumes that they had repeatedly rented from the Norwegian Film Institute. Fortunately, and unfortunately, the costumes were so old and threadbare when they used them the first time, that by now one could only hope that they would, by some miracle, hold together for this one last performance of The Fox. The Norwegian Film Institute realized that costumes were shot and needed replacing and they were willing to let them alter and keep the costumes for a small donation. The NFI had called it a donation, Vegard had felt like they were being blackmailed into paying a ransom because after today he had no intention of wearing the costume again. Bård laughed remembering how Vegard had really gone off on a rant about that.

At 3:00 pm, their scheduled rehearsal time, they looked around and realized that a lot of the actors were missing. Amy told them that everyone who had been in the conference room had followed her to the stage. She started making inquiries into her headset. One of the many MTV staff people came up to inform them that “the dog” was late, but he assured them that they’d gotten a call and that the actor was almost there.

Amy started talking and and after a few beats they realized she was talking to them and not someone on her headset. The other people missing from their menagerie were down in makeup. Apparently one of the makeup artists had called in sick and there was a bit of a backup down there. She told them that a couple more makeup artists had been called in. When they asked if they could just have the actors come up for rehearsal and then finish their makeup, Amy said that their "animals" would lose their places in line and might not get their makeup done at all and besides, by the time they got everyone up to the stage level, their rehearsal time would be over.

Bård glanced at Vegard. He knew that Vegard liked to be well rehearsed as much as he did, maybe even a little bit more. For one second he hoped that Vegard would call the whole thing off. How could they do this without one complete rehearsal? But Vegard took a deep breath and let it out and told Amy that they could deal with that.

So they went ahead and rehearsed with only half of the actors. The second time they ran through the song, Vegard had someone write down which step Bård was on when he said each animal’s sound. Vegard had decided that they would should write down individual instructions for each actor as to which step they needed to be on and when they would need to be there. Hopefully they could count.

Vegard started out with his cable attached to his harness and they practiced having one of the dancers attach Bård’s cable to him. That part went smoothly, except for the time that Vegard ended up facing backwards up in the air. Scott told them to make sure they were in their spots and stood still for a few seconds before being raised and that they should stay facing the right direction.

They were able to run the song three times. The actor who played the dog arrived in time to watch the third run through. And then they had to move. Their set was being taken away and a new set brought in.

 

* * *

 

 

He had been fine during rehearsal, there was so much to think about, so many things to remember that he didn’t have time to think about anything else.  But when they got off the stage Bård started to hyperventilate. All he could think about was something bad, no deadly, happening to Vegard. As soon as Vegard had calmed him down, Bård started begging him to let them drop out of the show. “Please, please. We don’t need to do this. Everyone has seen it already, a few million times.”

“That’s ridiculous, Bård.” Vegard was trying to get them to their dressing room so that they could discuss it privately. “We have to perform it. We’re here. They made this huge set for us, for fucking crying out loud. You think we’re going to say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks. We’ll watch from the audience.’ Are you serious?”

“Well, then we could say I’m too ill to perform. I don’t know. Anything! This is such a bad idea.”

Vegard pulled Bård into their dressing room and closed the door. “It’s not a bad idea. You’re letting your imagination get to you. It was just a dream. I know some of the things in the dream happened in real life, but come on. Do you know how easily the plane broke? It could have broken when our cleaning lady was dusting it.”

“Are you saying it was poorly made?” He was a little hurt by that. He thought Vegard really liked that Concorde.

“No! I just mean it was balanced rather precariously on the stand. Anyone could have knocked it off.” Vegard started unzipping his costume. He felt way too hot. He pulled it part way off so he could sit down.

“I think you’re missing the point. Per doesn’t break it in my dream.” Bård was standing just inside the room, feeling like he needed to be near the door in case this feeling of dread pushed down on him any further.

“What!? Then how does that even count?”

“I don’t know who breaks it in the dream. But it does break on Thursday, just like it did in real life. That’s why it counts.” He was starting to wonder if Vegard had even listened last night when he explained the dream and everything in it that had already happened.

Vegard sighed. There was no point in arguing the sanity of worrying about the dream. Bård had dreamed it too many times to just forget about it. And, maybe more to the point, he was so sleep deprived, because of the repeated nightmares, that it wasn't really fair to question his reasoning ability. At least, not out loud. “Look, we’ll talk to the Stunt Coordinator again. We’ll have him check the harnesses and the cables, but we are not going to back out of this performance…..because of a dream.”

Bård looked at Vegard with a hurt expression. “I’m just worried about you.”

“I know. And I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not worried about me. This will be safe and, honestly, I think it’s going to be the best live performance we’ve given of the song. It’ll be an excellent way to retire the song. At least for a good, long while.”

Bård didn’t know what to say. Usually he was the one who was stubborn and Vegard needed to cajole him into or out of doing things. He understood that the whole thing was kind of crazy. But he thought that Vegard, who had seen how completely terrified he was last night, would listen to him. Now he almost felt like Vegard would perform it on his own if Bård refused. No, he was sure of it.

Watching Bård standing so quietly after what he had just said made Vegard feel a little guilty. He hated that Bård was so worried about his safety, but he honestly couldn’t see how they could pull out now. That wasn’t something that they ever did. And it wasn’t something that he wanted to start doing now. He reached over and held Bård’s wrist, rubbing the inside of the wrist with his thumb. “It’s going to be fine. And it’ll be done in a few hours. We’ll go out to dinner afterwards and have a good laugh.”

He knew that Vegard didn’t mean it that way, but he felt like he was already having a good laugh at him for worrying about a dream. Feeling defeated and hopeless Bård watched Vegard begin to change out of his costume so that they could walk the red carpet. As he followed suit, he thought maybe if he was watchful he could still somehow prevent disaster from taking Vegard away from him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There were so many artists performing as part of the show that it was easy to feel somewhat overwhelmed. Bård and Vegard usually tended to stick to themselves in these situations, running through their performance in their heads or talking them through with each other. They felt the performance was more important than having photo ops with celebrities.

Vegard was already back in his squirrel costume. Bård was sitting alone in a corner, still in his jeans and t-shirt, looking as if he were in a trance. Vegard gently stepped on his toes to get his attention. “Hey, you ok?” He knew very well that Bård was not feeling ok, but he was hoping for a positive response.

Bård looked down and swallowed before answering. “Yeah...yeah, I’m fine.”

“You need to get your harness and your costume on.” Vegard hoped that maybe just moving around and the act of getting ready for a performance would distract him from worrying.

“I was just thinking about my dream.” Bård was looking up at him.

Vegard squatted in front of Bård - he couldn’t sit next to him because of the squirrel tail - and said quietly, “I don’t think we should think about that anymore. It's just a dream, you shouldn’t worry about it.”

“I mean the new dream that I had this morning. There is something so weird about it.” He looked at Vegard’s eyes and was hoping he would see some sign that he could at least talk about it.

 _The control it has over your thoughts is kind of weird._ A sigh escaped Vegard’s lips. “What is weird about it?”

“I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t talk to me. You were talking to other people. I think you talked to Calle and Magnus. So why not me?”

“I don’t know, Bård. You really need to get dressed.” Vegard was thinking he didn’t know anything about dream analysis, but he did know that they were going to perform soon.

“I know you think it’s stupid, but it’s just tugging at my brain.” Bård gave him a look that he could never fight against. And the funny thing was that it wasn’t anything intentional, it was just Bård looking at his big brother for some answers.

Vegard sighed again. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to distract Bård from this very easily. “Let’s see...I was talking to other people?”

“Yeah.” Bård knew that it was crazy. He really appreciated that Vegard wasn’t making fun of him, but he was afraid to know what he was actually thinking. And yet, it was Vegard, and he kind of needed to know. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…” He paused and ran through what he remembered about the dream. “Wait! I couldn’t hear you? Could anyone else hear you?”

“I don’t know I was only trying to talk to you. What does it matter?”

Vegard seemed to have paled a bit, under his makeup.“I just…. if I couldn’t hear you….wouldn’t that make you the ghost?”

“I don’t know….yeah...maybe you’re right.” Bård sat back thinking about it. It struck Vegard that he suddenly looked much more relaxed. “Yeah, that must be it. Maybe that’s what the other dream was about too.” He whole body seemed to sigh with relief.

“So, the other dream, the dream you had seven times...it might have been **_you_** that died?” Vegard felt a little panicky.

“I think it might have been. When she tells me you’re dead…. I mean she says ‘your brother died’......I always feel like I’m watching it happen rather than having her talking directly to me.” Bård was looking off in the distance, trying to replay the dream. It wasn’t difficult to do, he had been trying to get that exact scene out of his head all day.

“She might have been talking to me? But how could you get the two of us confused?”

“Whoever it is, is dressed in their costume. Mostly I see the fox head piece that we both wear. I suppose I never really looked beyond that.”

Vegard just sat in silence.

“I guess I need to get dressed.” Bård stood up.

Vegard stood and grabbed his arm. “Wait! Where are you going? We still don’t know what kind of danger you’re in.”

“What do you mean?” He looked at Vegard’s urgent eyes and started to realize that he was upset.

“If it’s about you, we don’t know what to look for.” He knew he should let go of Bård, he had grabbed him only to get his attention, but he couldn’t seem to tell his hand to release.

“Vegard, I didn’t think you would be worried about a dream.” Bård started to wonder about Vegard holding his arm, too. His eyes glanced down to where Vegard was holding on a little too tightly for comfort.

Vegard forced himself to let go. “Not ‘a’ dream, the same dream seven nights in a row. I mean, you’re right, normally I don’t believe in that kind of thing. But this...”

“A moment ago you were telling me it was just a dream and not to worry about it.”

“Yeah, well, I…” It seemed like everything was different. He wasn’t that concerned about a dream foretelling his own death. But when the dream was about Bård, that actually got to him. “I ...I don’t want you to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise...we are getting to the performance. I guess I am fond of cliffhangers though.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some descriptions of injuries that I don't think are too graphic, but if you really don't want to read anything about injuries, don't read this. 
> 
> I also reference the lyrics to The Fox which I, obviously, do not own the rights to.
> 
> The final chapter will be added momentarily.

8:15pm Sunday

 

Bård went to get dressed and Vegard was left in a room with about fifty other people - artists, managers, dancers, MTV producers, a few friends and family of various artists. So many people walking in and out, the cast of characters constantly changing as if he were standing in the middle of Oslo Central Station, and yet he felt completely alone and more than a little worried. This dream, The Dream, was about Bård dying?

He started running through their song in his mind, this time trying to envision what might be dangerous for Bård. The harness at the end of the song was the main thing he could think of but because Bård had been so nervous about his brother’s safety, everything possible had already been done to make sure that the harnesses were safe and the cable was securely attached up above.

The only other thing he could think of was the stairway. What if the sections are not put together securely? Bård starts the song on the deck, at the top of the stairway. I don’t know if we had anyone double check the safety of those stairs.

“Vegard. Vegard!” Bård’s voice cut through his thoughts. “We need to get to the stage. Miley is on next and then we’re up.”

Vegard noted how Bård’s demeanor had changed. He looked like he hadn’t a care in the world.

 

* * *

 

9:15pm Sunday

 

Bård climbed the back stairs as the house set was still being moved out to its proper spot on the stage. He smiled when he remembered Vegard’s warning about making sure that the deck was in place before stepping out. It was so dark that it was difficult to see anything so he carefully put one foot out of the doorway and didn’t step down until he was sure he felt something there.

The music began and he walked across the length of the deck. The Dog and the Cat were already standing at the top of the stairs. Bård paused as he sang the first lines…  

Dog goes woof

Cat goes meow

and then began to descend the stairs.

The next few animals were near the top of the stairs. Bird and Mouse passed him on his right.

…. tweet and Mouse goes..

And then two more passed him on his left.

…. goes moo, Frog...

By the time he passed the Elephant, he was about to step on the landing.

…. goes toot...

The Duck and the Fish were standing there, “talking” to each other, by the railing of the large landing. He paused as he sang the next part of the song.

…. quack and Fish goes….

And then quickly he dashed down the short set of stairs from the landing to the stage singing as he passed the seal.

…. ow, ow, ow….

A fox dancer met him at the bottom of the stairs, holding his fox head piece.  As soon as he turned around she put his fox head piece on his head and grabbed his jacket, ...But there’s one sound that no one knows…quickly he spun back around, as he had done so many times before.

What does the fox say?

Vegard watched him come down the stairs from the opposite side of the stage. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so nervous about a performance. It really wasn’t a very long verse but it felt like a lifetime before he saw Bård set foot on the stage. He had the next sixteen measures of Bård’s fox sounds to try to relax. And then it was his verse.

They met in the center of the forest scene for Bård to sing harmony on the second half of his verse. After singing about the horse, Bård backed off to the side of the house, just under the deck, to have the cable attached to his harness and the actor playing the horse started to walk up the stairs to join the other animals on the deck.

Vegard had felt relieved once Bård had gotten off the stairs, but he still had a nagging feeling of dread and couldn’t stop himself from looking over in Bård’s direction while he sang his first fox sounds. As he looked toward the house, he saw it. The deck was tipping to the right. Because of all the rehearsal snafus, this was the first time that all of the animals had been on the deck and the weight was too much for the temporary structure.  He stopped mid fox sound and ran toward the house. “Move! Bård! Move away from there!!”

Standing in the dark, under the deck, Bård had been looking over his shoulder at the fox dancer behind him who was having trouble finding the place on his harness to attach the cable. It took a moment to realize that Vegard wasn’t doing his fox sounds anymore... he was saying something. Bård turned around to look at his brother. Confused he stood frozen in his spot.

“It’s going to fall! Move!”

The “animals” had felt that there was something wrong with the deck a split second before Vegard had seen it. A couple of them took off down the back stairway. The rest tried to run down the stage stairs. Unfortunately, that meant  their weight shifted to the right side of the deck, which was enough to push the deck past the tipping point.

The look on Vegard’s face spurred him into action before the words really sunk in. Somehow he thought to reach back and grab the dancer’s arm and started bolting toward Vegard, dragging her along behind him.  It would have been best if they could have run away from the deck into the forest scene, but the set wasn’t built to walk through. In fact, from the side it looked more like very tall fence. So they had to run first toward the front of the stage along the side of the stairway before they could move away from the stairs.

Vegard could only watch as the whole thing started falling in what seemed to be slow motion. Because the railings were locked together, the falling deck caused the stairway to topple as well. He could see Bård pulling the dancer, and then suddenly he seemed to yank her forward to his side. As soon as they were past the forest set, Bård tried to move away from the stairway but the dancer got in his way. He was pushing her away from the falling structure when Vegard saw the metal railing hit him.

The force of the blow pushed Bård out away from the railing. Suddenly he felt like the world was swirling around him. Everything was quiet except for the blood rushing through his ears and all he could feel was a piercing pain in his shoulder. He fell forward and ended up laying on his arm. Being in that position was agonizing so he pushed himself over onto his back. The pain of rolling over was excruciating and laying on his back wasn’t really alleviating the pain. It felt as if someone had tried to pull his arm off. Any movement at all of his right arm caused a sharp pain so he grabbed his right arm with his with his left and held it tightly to his chest.

Almost immediately, someone was gently touching his good arm. His eyes were closed but he knew it was Vegard, from touch alone. He was gasping for breath and the sounds of the stage were returning to his ears. He couldn’t make out any single voice because the music was still playing loudly and there was a lot of yelling and people rushing around.

When he opened his eyes he noticed that his sleeve was ripped and soaked with blood. He observed it almost as if it had nothing to do with him and was surprised by the amount of blood on his arm because it was his shoulder that really hurt.

Then he saw Vegard leaning over him, trying to protect him from the prying eyes and photographers’ cameras, from the people running around and even from the noise that his brother knew would be overwhelming for him. He wasn’t totally sure what all Vegard was saying because it was still so chaotic and loud. And then he realized that he was part of the noise as he had been groaning loudly. Finally he could make out something Vegard said into his ear. “I’m right here.”

Every time he took a breath he felt another stabbing pain. As best he could, he tried to concentrate on what Vegard was saying. “It’s going to be ok. Help is coming.” Vegard gently removed Bård's fox cap and smoothed his hair while talking to him. He was still having trouble following everything Vegard was saying, but it felt comforting to have him there.

Vegard looked around to see if any medical aid was coming. There were a number of injured actors lying on the stage as well as on the collapsed deck and stairway, more injured people than there were paramedics available to help them. Up until this point he hadn’t thought about anyone but Bård, but now he was worried about the other people as well. He felt a little sick, thinking about how far some of them may have fallen.

Bård’s ragged breathing brought his attention back. “I’m right here, Bård. Help will be here soon.”

A paramedic came up to them to assess Bård’s injuries. It was difficult to see what was going on with Bård’s arm through the costume and the paramedic asked if he could take the top of the costume off.

“No!” Bård groaned. He didn’t want anyone moving his arm in any way.

But Vegard had answered at the same time. “Yes. Cut it off if you need to.”

“That’s probably not necessary. Is there a zipper in the back?” Vegard nodded. “We can just roll him onto his side to unzip it and then pull it off his arms.”

“No!” He realized that he probably had very little say in the matter, but Bård wanted nothing to do with this plan.

Seeing the rising panic in his eyes, Vegard tried to reassure him. “He’s here to help you.”

The paramedic rolled him onto his left side and unzipped the costume while Vegard stayed in front of him and attempted to distract him. Once he was on his back again, they began to gently pull the costume off of his arms. Bård yelled at Vegard when took hold of his left arm and forced him to let go of his right arm. “Oh! God no!!” Once the top of his costume was pulled down to his waist, Vegard put a hand on his good arm and tried to soothe him. “I’m sorry, Bård. He needs to see your shoulder.”

The paramedic examined the cut on his arm. “You’ll probably need a few stitches but it doesn’t look too deep.” He spoke to Bård, but also looked at Vegard, as he applied a sterile pad to Bård’s cut. Then he examined Bård’s shoulder. Now that he was down to his t-shirt the problem was more evident. Even Vegard could see that his arm wasn’t really in the right place. “You have a dislocated shoulder. They’ll have to take care of that at the hospital.” Bård was moaning quietly and it was hard to say how much of this he was taking in. After quickly running his hands along Bård to check for other injuries, he told Vegard that his injuries weren’t as severe as some of the other people’s and they would probably have to wait for the second wave of ambulances which were on their way.

 

* * *

 

 

10:30pm Sunday

 

When they arrived at the ER, Bård was immediately taken back to a curtained room and his injuries were reassessed by someone who introduced herself as Dr. Millio. When Vegard questioned her, because he thought she looked too young, she said she was a resident but was indeed a doctor. At the same time an IV was started by a nurse. When the doctor finished her initial assessment she told the nurse to add morphine to his IV and within only a few minutes Bård seemed to be much more comfortable. Before Dr. Millio left, she told Bård they were going to need an X-ray of his shoulder and then would send in an orthopedist to get his shoulder back into place.

As they started rolling him down to X-ray Vegard could see Bård looked unhappy. “I don’t want them to move my arm.”

“Just relax. They know what they’re doing” Fortunately, the morphine was doing its job and it didn’t hurt as much as he had feared. As soon as the X-rays were taken, they were wheeled back to their curtained room to wait.

* * *

 

11:25pm Sunday

 

The orthopedist came in through the curtain so quickly it was as if he were trying to them by surprise. After a curt introduction, he turned his attention to the X-ray films on the wall. Vegard thought he said his name was Dr. Wang, being certain that Bård would enjoy that Vegard turned to see his expression, but he had his eyes closed and seemed to be in pain. Without a word of explanation Dr. Wang stepped out to call for someone to assist him. A male nurse entered and looked directly at Bård and then Vegard as he said hello and introduced himself as Michael. After a brief conversation with the doctor, he gave Bård a shot of morphine and a muscle relaxant, all the while inquiring about the injury. He seemed to be genuinely interested, but also seemed to be using the conversation as a distraction in order to make Bård more comfortable, which Vegard appreciated greatly. The doctor exited, mumbling something about allowing the medication to take full effect.

Michael stayed in the room, monitoring Bård’s vitals and asking more about the VMA’s. As the medication started working, Bård became more and more relaxed. Dr. Wang returned and consulted with Michael about Bård, barely nodding at Bård or his brother. Seemingly satisfied he then said, mostly to Michael, that it was time to perform the reduction. Vegard only knew that reduction meant pulling the arm back into place, because Michael had taken the time to explain what they were about to do.

Not really wanting to watch, he focussed on Bård. Bård was so relaxed that he almost looked like he was going to take a nap. Since Bård’s eyes were closed, Vegard allowed himself to close his as well. Bård barely moaned as they pulled his arm more and more and then with a “clunk” his shoulder slipped back into it’s joint. Vegard opened his eyes and looked to Bård for a reaction, but he was still laying there, eyes closed, looking relaxed.

Dr. Wang left the room almost immediately, grunting something that Vegard couldn’t make out. He wondered if this was the usual bedside manner in the US, but considering the doctor had just fixed Bård’s shoulder he was mostly grateful. After checking his IV and asking if Bård wanted another blanket, Michael said someone would be in eventually to stitch up Bård’s cut. He apologized about the delay, saying the ER was crazy busy. He promised them that he’d be back to check on them soon and left as well.

Bård opened his eyes. “Hey, is it over?” Vegard laughed a little to himself, but was glad that he had been sedated enough that he hadn’t even realized that they were through with the procedure.

“Yes, they got it back into joint. Does it feel better?”

Bård smiled. “To tell you the truth, it doesn’t hurt much at all right now.”

“Good. Just relax.” Vegard felt himself breathing easier and finally relaxing, too . Somehow his brother being alright had always been necessary for him to be alright.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is. Sorry it took so long to complete. I kinda got stuck for a while. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

12:00am Sunday

 

They sat for a while in a comfortable silence. As Vegard watched Bård, he thought he noticed his breathing become a bit shallower. He assumed that some of the painkiller was wearing off and that he was feeling more discomfort. He was about to go see if Bård could have something to make him more comfortable when Bård looked up and squeezed his hand.

“Thanks for taking care of me…. on the stage…… and for…..… staying..…..... with me..…….. here.” He had to take a breath every few words.

“Are you ok?” Bård had paled and was breathing more rapidly, like he couldn’t get enough air.  And then he was too busy trying to breathe to talk at all.

Vegard stepped out of the curtain and called for help.

Michael quickly reentered the room and took Bård’s pulse. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone…. is pounding…… a drum…….. in my………. chest.” He looked a little panicky as if he wanted to run away, but the problem was inside of him.

Vegard had taken his place back by Bård’s side and was trying to keep him calm. “It’s going to be ok. Don’t worry.” But Vegard was suddenly very worried. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. The crisis was supposed to be over.

Practically flying in through the curtain, Dr. Wang returned. After asking about his vitals and observing Bård’s shallow breathing, he said something about needing to get Bård off of the morphine. A little light headed, Bård was beginning to feel more like he was watching everything happen from outside of himself. The last thing he remembered was Michael doing something to his IV bag.

 

* * *

 

1:30am Monday

 

Bård woke up to find himself still in the emergency room. There was no doctor in the small, curtained room but Vegard was sitting next to him, filling out some paperwork. His arm still hurt but it was a dull pain, helped he was sure by the magic of pharmaceuticals. “Vegard.” He felt really foggy and his tongue felt thick and dry.

Vegard stood up and set aside the paperwork. He’d been given a set of scrubs to wear, as he was beginning to feel pretty silly sitting around in his squirrel costume. “Hey, how are you feeling?” He took Bård’s hand and tried to look into his eyes, but Bård wasn’t all there. “Do you want some ice chips?” Bård wanted to say yes, but he felt himself slipping away.

 

* * *

 

3:00am Monday

 

The next time he woke up he was in a private room. He surveyed the room for Vegard, but no one was there. What he did see was that he was connected to an IV and that there was a blood pressure cuff on his arm and a finger clip heart rate monitor on his hand. His arm was in a sling and there was a bandage on his upper arm, he assumed it was covering some new stitches. He really didn’t like hospitals and looking at all the monitors and cables was making him feel a bit constricted. His chest tightened and he felt like it was becoming difficult to breathe. Closing his eyes he tried to head off the oncoming panic attack by focusing on his breathing. He was just contemplating why Vegard would have left him alone in a hospital when Vegard entered his room holding a plastic cup with a straw. “Oh, you’re awake. They said you would wake up soon. I thought I’d get you some fresh ice water.” He held the cup up as proof.

“I was wondering where you were.” He was trying to keep his voice from shaking, but Vegard registered the anxiety in his voice. Walking quickly to his side, he set down the cup and took Bård’s left hand in both of his hands. “I was only gone for a minute.”

They stayed that way for a while, Vegard holding his hand saying, “It’s ok,” and Bård trying to get his breathing back to normal, until eventually Bård gave him a small smile indicating that he could let go.

“How long have I been out?” Vegard took his top hand off but felt the need, probably for his own comfort, to keep holding on with one hand.

“Oh, a few hours. You had a reaction to the morphine they gave you. Your blood pressure went really low. It was pretty scary.” Vegard stopped, he hadn’t meant to include the last piece of information, but he had been scared shitless back in the ER while they had tried to stabilize Bård. The scene had turned into what to him felt like chaos, with three additional medical staff crowding into the room all at once. Michael had politely but very firmly guided Vegard out of the small curtained area so that the ER staff could help Bård. He had waited, just outside the curtains, able to observe but not really knowing what they were saying with the medical jargon they were using. He didn’t know how long it had taken and he wasn’t sure if he’d taken a single breath during that time, although he must have, but eventually Bård’s blood pressure was under control and his breathing returned to normal.

The doctor told Vegard that Bård had fainted from his low blood pressure and would likely be out for some time. That was a good thing, according to the doctor, because they couldn’t give him a different painkiller until most of the morphine had worked its way out of his system.

“So they admitted you, just for observation. Hopefully you can leave tomorrow….or I guess that’s later today.”

He held the cup up for Bård to take a sip and noted that his breathing had evened out from a minute ago.

Vegard set the cup back back down. “That really…you could have...I’m glad you’re ok.” Bård thought he saw some tears in Vegard’s eyes before he reached over to hug him. Vegard was hugging him a little tighter than was comfortable for Bård’s arm, but Bård understood that Vegard had been through something difficult that night too, and they usually took care of each other, so he hugged back with his good arm as tight as he could.

 

 

* * *

 

9:00am Monday

 

The next morning Vegard arrived early to check on Bård. He had gone back to the hotel to sleep for a while after Bård had insisted. “If you’re going to have wait on me hand and foot for the next few weeks, you’d better get some rest,” were his exact words. Bård had been feeling exceptionally relaxed at the time, as they had given him a sedative to help him sleep through the rest of the night.

“Good morning! How are we feeling today?” Vegard looked a little tired but he was showered and changed and carrying Bård’s backpack.

“I’m alright.” He looked somewhat relieved to see Vegard, his anxiety about hospitals having returned.

“No need for anyone to wait on you?” He smiled teasingly.

Remembering the conversation last night, he replied,“Well, I wouldn’t say that…” and smiled back.

Bård noticed that Vegard looked a little nervous about something today. “I’ve brought a few of your things and today’s paper.” He watched Vegard take a big breath and exhale. “You might as well look, there’s a big picture of it on the front of the entertainment section.” He handed the paper over to his brother.

Now it made sense. “No! Oh, crap… What’s the headline? Ylvis Falls Flat? Viral Hit Wonders Infect VMA’s?”

“No.” Vegard struggled to keep a straight face. "Fox Folly Foiled by Freak Fiasco.” He was looking down and smoothing Bård’s blankets at the foot of his bed, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.

Bård started laughing. “You thought that up on the way over here, didn’t you?” Vegard nodded, laughing quietly. Although Bård was apprehensively looking for the entertainment section, he still had to laugh at Vegard’s alliteration.

A simple ‘Set Collapses at the MTV Award Show’ was at the top of the page. Looking at the photo was bringing more of the details back to his mind. “Vegard, what happened to the dancer that was under the deck with me? How is she?”

“She sprained her wrist when you pushed her out of the way. Nothing serious.” Vegard was pulling a chair over to sit next to the bed. “They interviewed her. She has some weird idea that you’re her hero.” He smiled broadly...maybe proudly... at his brother.

“Yeah. See... some people like it when I try to push them out of my way. Remember that.”

They were both giggling when Bård suddenly stopped, as he took a closer look at the photo. “What about the actors on the deck? Are they ok?”

“Yeah, mostly. There were a couple of broken legs and a broken arm. One actor, the seal guy I think, had a concussion but they told me that it’s not too serious. The rest of the injuries were cuts and bruises. Most of them were able to go home last night.”

As Bård was listening, he had begun to read the newspaper report. “They stopped the show for forty-five minutes?”

“Well they couldn’t very well continue the show and just step over you.” Vegard stood back up so he could look at the newspaper too.

“I would have understood. _You_ were probably _more_ in the way.” Bård had a playful look in his eyes that Vegard realized he hadn’t seen in a while.

“ _Oh_ , you mean while I was _helping_ you?” Vegard laughed, somewhat relieved to hear a smart-alecky remark. “You sound like you’re feeling better.”

“Oh, look… here it is.... “ He was pointing to the newspaper article. “‘Bård pushed me out of the way, thinking of my safety first.' ’’ Bård grinned and started chuckling. “Really, she was just in my way.”

“I know.” Vegard was shaking his head. “Although you did have the presence of mind to pull her along with you and get her away from the falling set.” He stopped chuckling and looked directly at Bård. “To be honest, you did save her life.”

"Well, that was only because you warned me." Bard looked away, embarrassed. "I guess I should…” he turned back and looked at his brother, “I mean... thank you."

“You really had me worried, because of that dream.”

“Vegard, I’m sorry I made such a big deal about that dream. I…”

Putting his hand on Bård’s arm, Vegard interrupted.  “What do you mean? If you hadn’t told me about the dream I wouldn’t have noticed that the deck was falling. You would probably have been killed,” his voice hitched, “you and that dancer.” Vegard reached over and hugged him. As they hugged Bård barely heard him say, “What would I have done then, without my little brother?” He was really saying it more to himself than anything.

“Well, you probably would have gone on to have successful solo career.” Bård, of course, was trying to make a joke out of it.

Vegard looked a little stricken. “Don’t even say that. I almost broke Per’s neck for talking that way.”  

“Oh, so that’s what he was saying.” He thought about that for a second. “Well, he’s probably right. I mean, you could.” It wasn’t that Bård was teasing, and certainly not that he was encouraging it, he really was just full of admiration for his big brother.

“Well, I don’t want that, do you?” Vegard spoke quietly.

Bård replied sincerely. “No, not me.” But then he smiled and added, “I need you to keep me from getting squashed by scenery.”

Shaking his head, Vegard swiped a section of the newspaper and genially swatted him on the head. “I know. It’s almost a full time job.”


End file.
